And God said 'Let there be dry ice. And 80s hair'

A Buddy Christ for president production

Yes (and do consider it shouted shamelessly from the rooftops), I love this man. With nothing more going for him than the mere $16 million it takes to build a really tacky theme park, I submit to you he's done more for the cause of world domination by our sinister secular plot than could have an army of Madalyn Murray O'Hairs, and all the condom machines in all the high schools in all the world.

Rosenthal, for the most of you probably missing these references, is a Baptist minister (born Jewish, and another fascinating story lies therein) who has built in Florida a theme park he calls 'the Holy Land Experience'. For a modest $17 admission fee, at the Experience (note to the hipsters — yeah, maybe meant as a knowing reference to the Jimi Hendrix Experience, why do you ask?), you can visit a (refrigerated) tomb of Jesus, along with a stirring rendition of the second coming, suitably embellished with dry ice.

Adding to the undeniably B-movie quality of this spectacle, the papers, of course, are on about the controversy. Apparently, in one attraction, the sublimely tasteful designers of the venue have managed to juxtapose a depiction of Jewish religious observances on the Day of Atonement with the Christian nativity scene. Add to this that Rosenthal in one breath insists that he's not out to convert Jews (though as he heads up an evangelical Christian organization, it's hard to see this as particularly consistent with their doctrine), then goes on in the next breath to comment on the Rabbis 'shooting themselves in the foot' by giving the park publicity with such criticism. Nice guy. A real statesman. I like him.

And here I go. Shooting myself in the foot, I'm sure, by advertising his park free of charge to all five readers of this page.

Except that I want Rosenthal and his park to have all the publicity anyone can stand. Yes, I really want people to know this guy and his pink plastic Jesus are out there. I want the two of them to become cultural icons, at the very least.

They deserve nothing less.

In the same vein (and speaking of B-movies), and in the same month, you'll note that 'Left Behind' is now on a few mainstream theatre screens. This masterpiece comes to us from an evangelical film production company. It presents to us the image of those (ahem) left behind after the rapture.

No, the rapture, in case you're wondering, is not yet another bad B-movie (yet)¹. It's an event certain of the more amusing sects of Christians believe will literally occur maybe just any day now, when a lot of really nice people — you know, the ones with haircuts not unlike Dick Clark's, and who run homes sorta like June and Ward Cleaver's — will be swept up into heaven alive (leaving their shoes behind, smoking slightly, one presumes), while the rest of the unbaptised sorts will be left behind to cope with the armies of the antichrist.

Well, of course, except for those of us already recruited into the armies of the antichrist, but I digress, as always.

I think this is beautiful too. The world needs this. Christianity with cardboard cutout action heroes, bad dialogue, and superficial plotting based on a really pathetic trashy novel that mostly reads a lot like a ten-year old boy's revenge fantasy against the mean heathens who taunted him in the playground at recess for toting around his Pat Boone lunchbox.

Nor, of course, are the 'Left Behind' people the only sect foolish enough to have recently put their religion's mythology on film for all to bemusedly psychoanalyze. The Scientologists, as you probably recall, actually beat them to it by some months, with the almost equally deplorable 'Battlefield Earth'².

Many who see the Scientologists as some kind of sinister, manipulative cult (whatever gave them that idea?) were naturally alarmed by the spectre of founder L. Ron Hubbard's ravings showing up on the big screen. But apart from their basically valid point that the Scientologists could actually make money from this effort (I find this hard to believe, but it's incredible what happens in the post-theatre market, with people who will rent just about anything for a laugh — why, hello there, Waterworld), personally, I see this as a good thing. Yes, frankly, speaking of one of the proudly godless, I can barely imagine a more positive development than John Travolta running around in mutant corn rows in a positively gleefully trashy screen adaptation of one of Hubbard's pathetic little space operas, and I've always thought I had a pretty good imagination.

And why am I so pleased about all this?

I have my reasons.

See, I've been around a few decades now, and I'm starting to think that if there's anything that really costs a religion hearts and minds, actually, no, it's not the fact that their cosmology might make about as much literal sense in the modern world as does one of Dubya's speeches. No, it's not the fact that charming characters of various extreme political persuasions might persist in using their scriptures as cover for their otherwise unvarnished demagoguery. And no, it's not even that their televangelists get caught sleeping with the secretaries, no, it's not the priests caught with the altar boys. People can look that in the face, and reason as they always have that the mere fact that his earthly representatives are imperfect doesn't mean their god isn't still around and worthy of a tithe now and then.

No, I suspect the real death knell every religion should fear more than an army of Charles Darwins, and I hereby give them more than sporting warning, is the tackiness factor.

I have personal experience in this. See, I was raised in a Christian church, been through the whole rigmarole. So I can personally testify as to the sordid path of doubt that lead me down through the depths of depravity to the dark place in which I finally wrote this column.

And what drove me from the fold?

It's time I came clean. Though I've claimed as do so many of the unbelievers that it had something to do with reason, actually, it wasn't reasoned doubt at all.

Actually, honestly, I couldn't possibly care less whether what I personally believe actually makes any sense whatsoever.

As if anyone does. I mean, please. Why should I care if my reality actually achieves anything vaguely resembling internal consistency? So the holy book very much resembles a bizarre, barely coherent bundle of clearly fantastical myths cobbled together over the centuries by a tediously long and unremarkable series of halfwits with various axes to grind. I'm okay with that. So the contemporary synthesis of loosely associated beliefs that constitutes the core of the faith now reads like a newspaper advice column written by an army of monkeys bashing randomly in a room full of typewriters. As if it matters. So the last-ditch arguments for proving the unprovable now read like the 'never do this' examples from an introductory logic course. Who, really, finally, cares? Let's face it, my tolerance for bad, circular, self-serving arguments is as high as the next guy's, and as we all know, that's pretty much infinitely high.

And no, despite the oft-voiced suspicions of those who'd like to believe atheists are what we are to justify our making porn or selling street drugs or something (I hereby publicly declare in protest that these activities are at most a small part of my income), no it's not that the strictures of the religion were so hard to take either. That stuff comes easy.

Sure, really. The no sex before marriage thing — that I could have handled (if you'll pardon the expression). Showing up on Sunday now and then, I mean, hey, no big deal. It's not that much harder to sleep in a pew than it is at home. Oh and turning the other cheek, loving thy neighbour, all that. Yeah, sure. Hit me again. There's always plastic surgery.

Nope. Wasn't that either.

Actually, I became an atheist entirely in repulsed reaction to the tackiness factor.

I mean, come on, people. What do you want from me?

Lime green polyester robes on the priest? Red polymer wall plaques with sickly-sweet supposedly inspirational sayings painted on in shiny, metallic gold letters, the typeface inevitably the same ostentatiously ugly cursive embarrassment to the printing trade? Free plastic baptismal fonts in the cereal boxes? Trite instructional videos prominently featuring the indelible stamp of that unholy trinity of lousy production values — bad sound, bad lighting, and utterly hilarious hair? That's where I and my childhood faith finally started to part company.

Face it. It's inevitable. Keep it up with that stuff, and sooner or later, any rational human being is going to ask themselves those critical, painful, dangerous questions that bring the edifice of their faith crashing down.

Questions like: could a just god have anything to do with Christian heavy metal bands and comic strips? Could an omniscient god ever have created a world that would lead eventually to the creation of the unmistakable 'Army of God' haircut?³ Would a merciful god have subjected us to that whole Jim 'n Tammy Faye Bakker saga? Would an omnipotent god tolerate the existence of plastic statuettes of the virgin Mary with the 'Made in Korea' imprinted on her supposedly inviolate and unviolated nether regions? Has this alleged god no taste? Has he no shame? Shouldn't someone have been turned into a pillar of salt or something for all of this by now?

It was too much. Inevitably, I lost my faith, as would have anyone contemplating such questions, and faced the unavoidable, painful truth that had been sneaking up on me for years.

I realized, as everyone must, sooner or later, that religion, fundamentally, is just tacky.

It was devastating. What else could I do? I immediately burned my bibles, and joined the secular humanists, in exchange for their solemn vow that they would never, ever coerce me to subscribe to the Franklin Mint 'Last Supper' decorative plate series.

Others will follow. Rosenthal and the Left Behind producers have now virtually guaranteed it with their laudable efforts.

So as to that free publicity: I hereby encourage everyone with even an ounce of faith. Please. See the movies. Visit the park.

Trapped in the ever-narrowing space between your taste, and your belief, finally, what choice will you have?⁴

Ultimately, you will join us, on the dark side.

— 20 February 2001 / AJM

¹ Okay. My mistake. Apparently The Rapture is, indeed, also now a feature film title. Really shoulda seen that coming. Note, however, I can't report as to whether or not it qualifies as a bad B-movie, as I haven't (obviously) actually seen it (note added after original posting).

² I have this friend, an intrepid soul who generally does his best to see virtually every film that makes it to any mainstream North American theatre anywhere, and he tells me sitting through this plodding masterpiece was among his most painful movie experiences in some time. This, please note, comes from a man who survived 'Species II'. Lonely are the brave.

³ Note to security forces guarding clinics: if you ask me, I'd start by looking for the guy in the bad brown suit with that strange flattish haircut that looks a little like it was poured from the Ken-doll mould. Merely a modest suggestion.

⁴ Another sideways benefit of 'Left Behind' and 'Battlefield Earth' making it to a theatre near you is followers finally get to see just how very incredibly B-movie sci-fi the ravings of their various spritual canons really are when rendered with some proper special effects. That and the memorable apparition of the mass market critics effecitively working over these sects' so-called sacred books, albeit in film form. Oh, what I wouldn't give to have Pauline Kael give a direct review of, say, the gospel according to Matthew (for reference, consider her take on 'The Sound of Music'). Sadly, now, I can only dream.